Method of making perforated music-sheets.



P. J. MEAHL.

METHOD OF MAKING PERFORATED MUSIC SHEETS.

APPLICATION FILED AUGJB. 1914.

1,166,618. Pafnted Ja11.4, 1916.

In men tor:

COLUMBIA PLANOGRAPH Co., WASHINGTON, n. c

' 'fication. v

U TED srarns PHILIP if. MEAHL, or snlvnurr, new JERSEY.

METHODOF MAKING PERFOIRATED MUsIG sl-lEETs'.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 4, 1916.

Application fi s August s, 1914. Serial No. 857,331.

State of New Jersey, have invented certain v new and useful Improvementsin the Method of Making Perforated Music- Sheets, of which the followingis a speci- T his invention relates to c the method of making a mastersheet for perforating such sheet in quantities forthe trade, whichmaster sheet contains a record of manual playing, the perforations ofwhich master sheet are so adjusted or rectified so as to adapt the useofsuch master sheet in a mechanically controlled machine cal use, all ofwhich will be described in detail hereinafter. Q h

In the accompanying drawings in which like letters of referenceindicate'like parts in all the figuresz-Figure 1 is a, face'view of therecord sheet made automatically by manual playing and by an automaticrecording machine, parts being broken away.

Fig. 2 is a similar view of a copy of the said sheet as I'GCtIfiGCl,parts being broken awav.

In making the master sheet according to i 7 my new and improved method,a musical composition is first played by a skilled pianist on a pianowhich is connectedwith an automatic recording machine which contalnsmechanisms for actually recording' or perforating on a moving sheetevery key stroke made by the pianist, which record marks correspond tothe length of time a correct visual record of each key'depressed and ofthe time it has remained depressed. This record is made upon a sheet ofpaper 1 which is provided at its marginal edge with openings 2 intowhich teeth or cogs of sprockets pass so that the sheet 1 is feduniformly and always in i a straight lineertaih new as j usefulimprovements in the method of making perforated music sheets,particularlyto for making copies of the same for practi- I sheet islikewise preferably provided with transverse equidistant lines 4, whichlines with the longitudinal lines form squares?) 1I1 Wl11Ch thepunchings are to be made. The punclnngs are formed between thelongitudinal lines 3 as the paper cannot diverge laterally and noslipping is possible on account of the engagement of the paper wlth thesprocket teeth but it is practically impossible for a human being tostrike the keys with suchabsolute precision that the punchings will beexactly in the correct positions 1 Pianists have more or lessidiosyncrasies and peculiarities in touch and so forth, which they usefor the purpose of bringing out the expression and their interpretationof the composition and furthermore it is almost impossible for thepianists, especially when playing rapidly, to strike the successivenotes of a trill or a rapid succession of the same note with suchregularity that the punches will appear in the correct positions.

. It will be found in practice that in'such an automatically producedrecord of manual .playing, the punchings representing a series of notesstruck in succession, will not be the same distance apart and there willbe considerable variation; This is absolutely un- I 'avoidable, but sucha sheet cannot be used for the mechanical reproduction of copies becausethe machlnes for reproduclng such record or mak ng copies in quantityare I .p'urely mechanical and are dependent upon having the individualperforations or beginnings of slots in the master sheet spaced withexactness in accordance with the "strokes of the means for operating thepunches in the duplicating machine and be- Lotus ih'd l' t' l' key 1sheld depressed, so as toproduce a q mgmacnnes are Pro vided withselector devices which make a predetermined series of strokes per unitof time and the selectors can only properly select if the paper is movedin exact accordance with the strokes of the selector mechanismand theperforations have the proper positions in relation to the feed ofthe'master sheet. The record marks made automatically by the'pianoplayer have no fixedrelation whatever to the number of steps or strokesof the mechanically operated punch controlling or selecting means of amechanically operating duplicating machine for producing copies of suchperforated sheet and unless the individual perforations or beginnings.of slots in the master Sheet have this fixed relation to the steps ofthe mechanically operated perforating machine, such master sheet cannotbe used successfully on such reproducing machine. Therefore, after thepianist has produced the record of his manual playing in the manner thatI have described and which I have indicated in Fig. 1, a skilled personmakes the necessary corrections or transpositions or changes so that therecord marks or punchings are in proper places and the bridges betweenthe note slots in alinement will be of the proper size. For example,'foran eighty-eight note machine, each cut made by a punch is fromone-twenty-seventh to one-thirty-second of an inch. The smallest bridgeof paper permissible in the completed sheet is three-sixteenths of aninch. In order to form such bridges in the completed sheet to be used bythe player, four or five cuts of the punches must be omitted for abridge. The skilled person correcting this manual record, transposes thepunchings corresponding to the beginning or end of a note slot or singlepunchings in their relation to the squares 5 when they have not been cutout in the exact proper position by the automatic recorder, thecorrected or adjusted sheet being shown for example in Fig. 2. Suchcorrected sheet however cannot be used as a master sheet in a machinefor making the commercial perforated note sheets because it is on toosmall a scale and therefore I pass this automatically made andsubsequently corrected manual record sheet shown in Fig. 2, through aspecial perforating machine having mechanically controlled selectingmeans, which produces a copy on a larger scale and this enlarged copy ofthe adjusted and corrected automatically made record sheet of the manualplaying is then used in an ordinary purely mechanical perforatingmachine of the well known type, used for making any number of commercialcopies of commercial perforated music sheets, such as are used in thevarious automatic piano players now on the market, which reproducingmeans has a mechanically operated punch controlling or selecting deviceoperated at regular intervals for each time unit.

Having described my invention whatI claim as new and desire to secure'by Letters Patent is 1. The method of making copies of automaticallyrecorded music sheets for automatic musical instruments, consisting inproducing automatically a record of manual playing on a key mstrument;manually making corrections on the automatically .produced record sheetas are required for 'machine having step by step selectors and a step by'step'feed andusing the so corrected sheet as a master sheet in amechanically or electrically operating duplicating machine having stepby step selectors and a step by step 'feed to obtain an enlarged copy ofthe original sheet and using this sheet just produced as a master sheetin a mechanically or electrically operating duplieating machine formaking sheets commercially, substantially as set forth.

2. The method of making copies of automatically recorded music sheetsfor automatic musical instruments, consisting in producing automaticallya record of manual playing on a key instrument; then correcting andadjusting the positions of those record marks thus produced requiringcorrection or change as to their position in the direction of the lengthof thesheet or the length of such record marks so that said record markswill coincide with the positions which they must have in order to enablethem to control the operations of punches in a machine having mechanicalpunch controlling means which are operated at regular intervals in aunit of time and have a fixed relation to the steps for the feed of thepaper; and then making an enlargement of the so adjusted or correctedrecord and finally using this enlarged copy ofthe record as a mastersheet in a perforating .machine having 'a .mechanically operated punchcontrolling or selecting means, which operates a definite number oftimesin each time unit and for a determined feed of the paper,substantially as set forth.

Signed at New York city, in the county of New York and State of New Yorkthis 28th day of July, A D. 1914;.

PHILIP J. MEAHL.

Witnesses:

OSCAR F. GUNZ, 'PAUL H. FRANKE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, byeddressingthe Commissioner of Patents.

Washington,v I). C.

